BRONXVILLE, N.Y. — Recently, following a round of chemotherapy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, doctors informed Father Mortimer “Morty” O’Shea that he had a fractured vertebra. The chemo weakens Father O’Shea, so he hasn’t been active. He said he doesn’t know what force or exertion cracked the disk. Still, he wasn’t surprised.
His cancer is “multiple myeloma,” which starts in the bone marrow and spreads outward, reducing one’s skeleton to brittle sticks. His prognosis is grim.
“There was a good friend of mine back in Ireland, and she had the same thing,” Father O’Shea said. “The poor woman needed elephant doses of morphine at the end. …Maybe that’s ahead of me.”
Members of the New York Legislature say they want to help terminally ill people through the Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) Act. This measure would essentially allow terminally ill patients to end their life with fatal medications prescribed by doctors.
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The Assembly on April 29 passed the bill with an 81-67 vote. The Senate on June 9 passed it with a 35-27 vote. The bill will now go to the desk of Gov. Kathy Hochul for a signature. As of press time, she had not indicated whether or not she would sign it. Father O’Shea said the passing of MAID is an advance of the “culture of death.”
“All you can say is [it’s of] little surprise,” Father O’Shea said. “It’s obviously unfortunate because one of the big cliches that goes along with this is that a right to die becomes a duty to die, and once the law
gave favorability to abortion, then the whole thing became much more socially acceptable. “It’s absolutely the onward progression of the culture of death.”
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Of the 16 state senators with districts in the Diocese of Brooklyn, eight are co-sponsors of the bill. They call it “death with dignity,” but Father O’Shea disagrees.
Having fought cancer for a dozen years, he knows firsthand the torment of an aggressive disease. Still, he worries that assisted suicide would only lead to tragic conclusions, as he witnessed during his 28 years as a priest.
“Whenever I’m doing a suicide funeral, I’m kind of looking into a black hole,” Father O’Shea said. “And to think that we are, as a society, putting our head into that noose is just a pure tragedy.”
This isn’t just a Catholic thing, Father O’Shea said. He noted protecting human life predates Christianity, as cited in the “Code of Hammurabi” from the mid-1700s BC in ancient Mesopotamia. Next came the Ten Commandments in the early 1300s BC, including the sixth one — “You shall not murder.”
There’s also the “Hippocratic Oath” for Greek physicians, some 300-500 years before Christ’s birth. It includes the ethics “I will do no harm” and “neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course.”
Father O’Shea said Cardinal Timothy Dolan drove that point home “like a hammer” in response to the State Assembly’s passing its version of the MAID Act. In a statement, Cardinal Dolan wrote that the bill would turn the Hippocratic Oath “on its head.”
Bishop Robert Brennan is also a strong opponent of the bill, having written to each of the state senators who serve the Diocese of Brooklyn.
“I strongly disagree with those who claim this to be death with dignity,” Bishop Brennan wrote in his statement decrying this legislation. “Life is inherently valuable regardless of one’s condition or prognosis.”
He added that real death with dignity can be achieved through “palliative and hospice care” that addresses a patient’s medical, emotional, and spiritual needs.
Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton, whose District 23 includes parts of Staten Island and Brooklyn, is among the bill’s co-sponsors. After MAID passed the Senate on June 9, Scarcella-Spanton posted on X that she believes the bill is “rooted in compassion and dignity” and she “was proud to stand alongside” her colleagues in voting to pass the bill, calling it “a historic moment.”
I have been an ardent supporter of MAID because I believe it is rooted in compassion and dignity. Today I was proud to stand alongside my colleagues in voting to pass MAID on the Senate floor—a historic moment that honors Brian, Ayla, and the countless others who fought for this. pic.twitter.com/ZfuINdu64r
— Senator Jessica Scarcella-Spanton (@NYSenator_JSS) June 10, 2025
Last year, responding to an opinion piece from Cardinal Dolan in opposition to an earlier version of the bill, Scarcella-Spanton said his view “doesn’t represent all or even most of the Catholic Church parishioners.”
Father O’Shea acknowledged that the “authentic Gospel” response to euthanasia can be a “tough sell” to some modern-day Catholics, especially those who have already justified abortion.
“But,” Father O’Shea added, “if I’m in a culture that affirms the dignity of life and the fact that we’re made in God’s image and likeness, then suffering has value — even a redemptive value.”
He referred to Matthew 16:23-24, in which Jesus says, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
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Therefore, Father O’Shea said Christians are on a path, similar to a Way of the Cross, leading to a Resurrection Sunday. Still, he added, they can’t reach an “empty tomb” by avoiding the “Good Friday” suffering that is
the human experience.
“People don’t like this stuff — taking up crosses and following Jesus,” Father O’Shea said. “But, you see, the whole Christian ethical world is based on that premise.”
Father O’Shea conveyed that his fractured disk has healed with a “little dose of medical Super Glue,” courtesy of his doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and he prays that a new cancer treatment might come about that could buy him more time.
However, he is bracing for more pain.
“Even if I do require elephant doses of morphine, it’s nothing,” he said. “I mean, Jesus didn’t have Tylenol on Good Friday, right?”
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Join the New York State Catholic Conference in Demanding a Stop To Physician-Assisted Suicide
Scan the QR code below to contact New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s office and voice your opposition to the bill, or head to nyscatholic.org/action-center.